All You Need is Kill

So, it’s been about a week and , as usual, work and life and not really being able to pull an idea for a post together has kept me from posting the things. Aside from that, I’m about a third of the way through Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s Edge of Tomorrow, originally published as All You Need is Kill here in the US. I picked it up because the blurb reminded me of an older sci-fi work my dad used to tell me about where the soldiers it focused on were revived and forced to keep fighting every time they died in battle and it went on for decades or more. After reading a little of it I got him a copy of it too as a Father’s Day gift.

So far our hero, Keiji Kiriya, has figured out that the time loop only seems to work for him and he’s decided to make the best of that to see if he can eventually survive the second day of the loop. I admit, the first few chapters felt overly repetitive but that’s because they take place before he’s figured it out, when the battle is still just a nightmare. Not sure if I like how solitary the narrative is, I get that he’s the only one to remember the loops (at least as it’s been revealed so far) and is just focusing on making himself better because that’s really all that can be done. It just feels a little weird that all the minor characters are as static as they, purposefully, are and as seemingly unimportant. It’s a book where everyone is a red shirt so far and the big reason that strikes me is because I’m used to the cast being more present in the story, so it’s strange to just get glimpses of side characters and then nothing. It doesn’t hurt the story, I don’t think, it’s just taking some getting used to.